How Consumer DNA Technology Jeopardizes Your Privacy (And Might Even Put You In Jail)

Jay Cook and Tanya Van Cuylenborg, a young Canadian couple, were brutally murdered in 1987. The investigation yielded no solid suspects. But more than three decades later, police has finally made an arrest, and just like in the recent case of “Golden State Killer”, the case was cracked thanks to genetic genealogy.

The solving of this cold case is where Bloomberg’s podcast Decrypted starts its examination of the consumer DNA databases used for criminal investigation. Hosts Pia Gadkari and Kristen V. Brown talk to CeCe Moore, a genetic genealogist at DNA technology company Parabon NanoLabs, who helped the police identify the suspect.

“This week on Decrypted, we’re exploring the unintended consequences of consumer DNA tests. These services are blooming, with millions of people sending their spit in to companies like Ancestry and 23andMe. They promise to unite people with long lost family members, detect risk of disease and even suggest personalized dieting regiments. But critics fear that our DNA could come to be used in ways that would compromise our privacy and even potentially land someone we’re related to in jail,” the hosts pitch the episode.

The podcast also mentions a fascinating recent study that showed that 60% of white Americans can be identified from a DNA sample, although they have never provided their own DNA to an ancestry registry. Think about it: even if you're not within the database yourself, your second cousin's genetic test might be...

And if you haven’t had enough of DNA data with this podcast, you can also listen to this week’s If Then. Starting at 13:45, Slate’s Will Oremus and April Glaser interview Kate Black, global privacy officer and senior counsel at the genetic testing company 23andMe, discussing the ownership of genetic data and its disclosure to law enforcement.